Field-trip map research — October 2, 2026

Route design

assets/tours.json holds ordered groups of public stops. The interface shows their order on the map and uses a Google Maps directions URL with the first verified arrival as origin, the last as destination, and the middle stop as a waypoint. An explicit visit.arrival coordinate is required for each routed stop; site precision alone is insufficient because a landmark is not necessarily the place to park. It does not claim to supply walking navigation, live closures, road-surface information or travel time. Each stop links to the current land manager and a trail or site map where available. Tours have three stops so the directions URL remains practical on mobile. A ?tour= URL opens a selected tour.

The CCC tour runs Lake Nummy → Bass River Lake Absegami → Penn State Forest Lake Oswego. The habitat tour runs Wharton’s Atlantic White Cedar Trail → Franklin Parker Preserve Speedwell Entrance → Black Run Kettle Run East. The routes are thematic day outings, not claims that camp ruins or research plots are marked for visitors. Pakim Pond remains a visitable landmark but is excluded from routing: its old point is the pond, not verified parking.

New mapped arrivals

Stop Official access evidence Coordinate basis and limits
Belleplain Lake Nummy NJDEP park page, NJDEP trail guide, area map Lake day-use parking 39.24503, −74.85780 from NJHiking parking GPS, checked against the state map. This is an arrival point, not a CCC camp structure.
Wharton Atlantic White Cedar Trail NJDEP trail guide, Wharton visitor page State guide places parking at CR 532 and Patty Bowker Road; field hiker’s GPS gives 39.846948, −74.676311 for that lot. The pin is the public trailhead, not a cedar stand.
Stafford Forge WMA bog ponds NJ Fish & Wildlife WMA profile, official WMA road map Pinelands Commission Westecunk Creek handout gives 39.666660, −74.320304 for a bog pond and spillway. It is a locality marker without generated directions because visitor parking and the forge footprint are unverified.

Limits kept visible

  • The Belleplain Seashore Line Trail has a documented 1.5-mile nonmotorized section, 5.8-mile shared section and a break at Route 605. A story was added, but no directions pin was created: the guide does not publish a verified parking coordinate for the northern trailhead.
  • The old Lebanon Glassworks map place was downgraded from site to locality. Its community-map coordinate was not enough to establish a furnace footprint. The new story links the larger history to the public 8.4-mile Glassworks Trail without sending readers to a supposed ruin.
  • The 1878 atlas view of Stafford Forge Cranberry Plantation establishes that name and Daniel R. Gowdy’s attribution. It does not supply a surveyed overlay of today’s dikes or settle the relationship to Nathaniel Bishop’s later bogs.